The value for the “Amount of disk space to use for temporary offline files” option reverts after you make it larger than 2 GB in Windows XP and in Windows 2000 Professional

In Microsoft Windows Explorer, in the Folder Options dialog box, you set the value for Amount of disk space to use for temporary offline files option so that the value is larger than 2 gigabytes (GB). After you make this change, you open the Folder Options dialog box again. You notice that the value for the setting has reverted to the previous value.

This behavior occurs because the client-side cache for temporarily-cached files is limited to 2 GB. This limitation exists because the signed 32-bit integer internally stores the cache size value.

Temporary caching occurs when a client accesses a share that is marked for automatic caching. These files are cached on use. However, the client-side cache may temporarily remove these files if there is not sufficient space in the cache.

This limitation does not apply to manually-cached files. Manual caching occurs when you right-click a file or folder in Windows Explorer, and then you click Make Available Offline.

This behavior is by design.

To configure the cache size for temporarily-cached files, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Use the slider

1. Click Start, click Run, type explorer, and then click OK.
2. In Windows Explorer, click Tools, click Folder Options, and then click the Offline Files tab.
3. Under Amount of disk space to use for temporary offline files, move the slider to change the cache size.

Method 2: Use Group Policy

1. Click Start, click Run, type gpedit.msc, and then click OK.
2. Expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Network, and then click Offline Files.
3. In the right pane, double-click Default cache size.

For more information about Group Policy settings, visit the following Microsoft Web site: